Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

This book was something new for me in several aspects. First, it was the first book by R.S. I read. Not too surprising though, for he isn`t that popular. Second, never before had I read a book where characters occasionaly speak in yiddish. Not that I learned anything from that language, apart from "Meschugge" and "Kuss mech in toches" which I knew before this book. Then the contents of the book were really untrivial - it`s about modern days of Jews in Germany and about what people`s attitudes towards Germans are, what they think of themselves and of the others. The leading character is a man in his early seventies who can`t accept that he`s got cancer (because he hasn`t got cancer), who can`t accept that his son lives with a German woman (although he himself also lives with a German woman), and who doesn`t want to spend a rather big amount of money for his friends eye surgery. The interesting aspect for me was how the Jews draw a very strict line between themselves and the "gojim". For a partly Jewish person like myself it was quite a surprise, it was also interesting to read about the different approaches towards the state of Israel and towards the Palestinians the German jews have nowadays. As a pure work of art the book ain`t no slouch either, but it`s surely mostly the content and not the form that made the difference for me.